The following three lessons highlight effective strategies I have used in teaching reading, teaching writing, and differentiation.
Teaching Reading
Context: 10th grade co-taught on level and 10th grade honors
Standards:ELAGSE9-10RL3 Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.
Overview: Across my two classes, I taught two different full class novels, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and Unwind by Neal Shusterman. Somebody Wanted But So (SWBS) charts were an effective tool in both classes to quickly recap characters and their motivations. I chose to implement this strategy at the halfway point of a novel. My students sit in table groups of 4, so I would assign each table group a section of chapters to create charts for. After all of the groups were done, each table would read off their chart so that the whole class could get a recap of the novel so far. This was an especially critical strategy to use while attempting to teach a novel in the middle of a pandemic where students could be absent for weeks at a time and miss large sections of reading.
Standards: ELAGSE9-10W1 Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence. a. Introduce precise claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and create an organization that establishes clear relationships among claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence. b. Develop claim(s) and counterclaims fairly, supplying evidence for each while pointing out the strengths and limitations of both in a manner that anticipates the audience’s knowledge level and concerns. c. Use words, phrases, and clauses to link the major sections of the text, create cohesion, and clarify the relationships between claim(s) and reasons, between reasons and evidence, and between claim(s) and counterclaims. d. Establish and maintain an appropriate style and objective tone. e. Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the argument presented.
Overview: After reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, students composed argumentative essays discussing themes of justice and colonialism in the novel. Throughout the writing process, we analyzed mentor texts as a class to decide what works (and what doesn't) in terms of structure. The best mentor texts for our purposes were the ones created by other students; however, sharing your writing with the entire class for revision and critique is intimidating. In order to break down this barrier, I started each class period by sharing a piece of my own writing from when I was in high school. Students gave me their feedback on the good, the bad, and the ugly of my own writing from age 15 and so they were more open to having their own work shown to the entire class. For me, full class revision was the most effective technique for teaching literary analysis without just giving students a template.
Examples of my high school writing that I asked students to "roast" constructively
Student examples that I highlighted for full class comment
Differentiation
Context: 10th grade co-taught on level
Standards:ELAGSE9-10RL2 Determine a theme or central idea of text and closely analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
Overview: As a part of our dystopia unit, we read Unwind by Neal Shusterman. Reading a full class novel with this particular group was extremely challenging because of the range of reading abilities was all over the place; I had a student who during this time read seven books by Neal Shusterman, a student who would not have been able to read Unwind without the support of audiobooks and annotations, and students at every level in between. I elected to not give reading quizzes and instead grade any evidence of their reading process. Students had the ability to choose whether they used graded annotations or keep a reading log to provide evidence of their process. The annotations were more helpful for striving readers while the reading logs better lent themselves towards more advanced readers. The reading logs also allowed students to read ahead and to keep reading the rest of the books in the series (I had three students complete the entire series). In terms of the reading itself, students had 30 minutes of reading time each day in class. I would read the first chapter out loud and then give the rest of the time for students to read independently. Students could choose to read silently, listen to the audiobook, and/or to read ahead of the median pace during this time. While this freedom of choice in terms of pacing and assessment was a bit chaotic on my end (and there are definitely things I would change), I think overall it made it so nobody "gave up" on reading the book. Since there was less pressure to be "on pace" students didn't feel as though they were being left behind. Also since this was a co-taught class, I felt that students did a lot more practice with the skills that they personally needed to work on than if I had made everyone stick to the same pace and complete the same assessments. Unwind is a very important book to me personally and so I was happy that the majority of my class finished it.
Example of student annotations
Example of end of chapter questions to help guide student annotations
Example of a student reading log entry (this student had started book 2, Unwholly)